Rant of the Exiles

This post is dedicated to Fred Gilham whose paper inspired this idea. When you look at a painting, it can take a moment to determine its centerpiece. In this 1851 work by Emmanuel Leutze, it’s pretty clear. The centerpiece is not the boat or the river of ice. It’s not the men rowing or the guy holding the flag. It’s not the guy holding his hat or the guy steering the boat. It’s the man standing in the center, rising up higher and straighter than anyone else. George Washington. He is the center of the picture. He makes up only a small portion of the surface area of the painting. But the picture would not be meaningful without him. He’s the one who made the decision to cross the Delaware River in the middle of the night in order to surprise the Hessian army (artistic license made it a daytime crossing). He’s the one who led his exhausted troops through the freezing cold on that Christmas evening in 1776. The credit for victory in the Battle of Trenton goes to him. All the elements of...

The potluck is the pinnacle of immigrant church activities. When a critical mass of families come together, the inevitable result is each family bringing a dish to share. It’s economical, communal, and festive. But there’s a dark side to potlucks. This side gets darker as the number of families involved increases. First of all, there’s little supervision of children. And they run around crazy like a gang of raccoons. They raid the desserts, cherry-pick the best food, run off, snarf it all down, and then wreak havoc in some deserted corner of the house/church/building/park/structure. But that’s not the worst of it. Adults go crazy. This is especially for large gatherings, where most of the people don’t know each other. Parents cut in line. They pile their plates. People have no shame taking all of a good dish until it’s gone. Any type of seafood always goes fast. Fifty pieces of sushi won’t last more than ten people. They might leave a token piece of shrimp to appease the god ...